Publishers of "Daily Kos." Sixteenth in a series.

Thousands of home-based health care providers have been forced into a union because they receive assistance from the state while they take care of loved ones who are disabled. The Service Employees International Union receives close to $6 million annually in forced dues from this abusive arrangement.

House Bill 4003 would end this injustice by clarifying that Michiganders who care for relatives in their own homes are not government employees, and hence are not appropriate targets for government unions. That bill has passed the House but is stuck in the Senate. While we wait for the Senate to act, the SEIU continues to siphon money that was meant to help families.

Here's another example of where that money might be going, drawn from the SEIU's 2010 LM-2 report:

Kos Media, the publishers of the Daily Kos website, received $144,000 from the SEIU in 2010. The money was described as being for political advocacy.

Daily Kos is among the best known progressive blogs on the web, and SEIU figures prominently — and positively — on its pages. One recurring feature is the Daily Kos/SEIU State of the Nation Poll, which recently found that "everyone hates Rush Limbaugh" except for Republicans and "teabaggers."

Kos Media and Daily Kos are among the many institutions that Michiganders have been supporting with money that was intended to go to the families of disabled persons.

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